Causal necessity, causal sufficiency, and the implications of causative verbs

Nadathur, Prerna; Lauer, Sven

Causal necessity, causal sufficiency, and the implications of causative verbs

Dateien

Nadathur_2-1uof47i6b5rw80.pdfGröße: 1.66 MBDownloads: 64

Datum

2020

Open Access-Veröffentlichung

Open Access Gold

Sammlungen

Linguistik

Publikationstyp

Zeitschriftenartikel

Publikationsstatus

Published

Erschienen in

Glossa : A Journal of General Linguistics. Ubiquity Press. 2020, 5(1), 49. eISSN 2397-1835. Available under: doi: 10.5334/gjgl.497

Zusammenfassung

Against past analyses, we propose that natural language causatives do not universally encode a single, unanalyzable bringing about meaning like Dowty’s (1979) CAUSE, but instead draw on an inventory of contrasting causal dependency relations. To illustrate this claim, we focus on the English causative verbs make and cause. We point out a number of differences in their inferential profiles, and argue that these follow from the fact that cause asserts a relation of causal necessity between a cause and its stated effect, while make asserts causal sufficiency. We distinguish these notions from their alethic counterparts: while causal necessity is similar to the notion of counterfactual necessity (Lewis 1973), causal sufficiency has not figured in previous analyses of causal language. We show that analyzing make as a sufficiency causative not only accounts for the similarities and differences between its distribution and that of cause, but also enables us to explain previously puzzling inferences associated with the use of make as opposed to other periphrastic causatives.

Fachgebiet (DDC)

400 Sprachwissenschaft, Linguistik

Schlagwörter

causative, cause, make, sufficiency, necessity, causal models

Zitieren

ISO 690

NADATHUR, Prerna, Sven LAUER, 2020. Causal necessity, causal sufficiency, and the implications of causative verbs. In: Glossa : A Journal of General Linguistics. Ubiquity Press. 2020, 5(1), 49. eISSN 2397-1835. Available under: doi: 10.5334/gjgl.497

BibTex

@article{Nadathur2020-06-01Causa-59084,
  year={2020},
  doi={10.5334/gjgl.497},
  title={Causal necessity, causal sufficiency, and the implications of causative verbs},
  number={1},
  volume={5},
  journal={Glossa : A Journal of General Linguistics},
  author={Nadathur, Prerna and Lauer, Sven},
  note={Article Number: 49}
}

RDF

<rdf:RDF
    xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
    xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
    xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
    xmlns:bibo="http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/"
    xmlns:dspace="http://digital-repositories.org/ontologies/dspace/0.1.0#"
    xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
    xmlns:void="http://rdfs.org/ns/void#"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#" > 
  <rdf:Description rdf:about="https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/server/rdf/resource/123456789/59084">
    <dcterms:title>Causal necessity, causal sufficiency, and the implications of causative verbs</dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:available rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime">2022-11-09T14:44:45Z</dcterms:available>
    <dc:creator>Nadathur, Prerna</dc:creator>
    <dc:contributor>Nadathur, Prerna</dc:contributor>
    <dcterms:abstract xml:lang="eng">Against past analyses, we propose that natural language causatives do not universally encode a single, unanalyzable bringing about meaning like Dowty’s (1979) CAUSE, but instead draw on an inventory of contrasting causal dependency relations. To illustrate this claim, we focus on the English causative verbs make and cause. We point out a number of differences in their inferential profiles, and argue that these follow from the fact that cause asserts a relation of causal necessity between a cause and its stated effect, while make asserts causal sufficiency. We distinguish these notions from their alethic counterparts: while causal necessity is similar to the notion of counterfactual necessity (Lewis 1973), causal sufficiency has not figured in previous analyses of causal language. We show that analyzing make as a sufficiency causative not only accounts for the similarities and differences between its distribution and that of cause, but also enables us to explain previously puzzling inferences associated with the use of make as opposed to other periphrastic causatives.</dcterms:abstract>
    <dc:language>eng</dc:language>
    <dc:date rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime">2022-11-09T14:44:45Z</dc:date>
    <dc:rights>Attribution 4.0 International</dc:rights>
    <dc:contributor>Lauer, Sven</dc:contributor>
    <dcterms:isPartOf rdf:resource="https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/server/rdf/resource/123456789/45"/>
    <dcterms:rights rdf:resource="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"/>
    <dspace:hasBitstream rdf:resource="https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/bitstream/123456789/59084/1/Nadathur_2-1uof47i6b5rw80.pdf"/>
    <dspace:isPartOfCollection rdf:resource="https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/server/rdf/resource/123456789/45"/>
    <dc:creator>Lauer, Sven</dc:creator>
    <void:sparqlEndpoint rdf:resource="http://localhost/fuseki/dspace/sparql"/>
    <foaf:homepage rdf:resource="http://localhost:8080/"/>
    <dcterms:hasPart rdf:resource="https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/bitstream/123456789/59084/1/Nadathur_2-1uof47i6b5rw80.pdf"/>
    <bibo:uri rdf:resource="https://kops.uni-konstanz.de/handle/123456789/59084"/>
    <dcterms:issued>2020-06-01</dcterms:issued>
  </rdf:Description>
</rdf:RDF>

Universitätsbibliographie

Ja

Begutachtet

Ja